


on the horizon of a star child

by psychedelicbubblegum



Series: MASHverse [12]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Again, Anxiety, Dreams, Heather's just a bit nervous, Introspection, Mutant Powers, Phoenix Force - Freeform, Prophetic Dreams, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Training, Self-Doubt, Telepathy, Unbeta'd, apprehension, born from watching murder documentaries, but what's new with me?, cosmic entity, cosmic power (hinted), dream realm, unlocked potential
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 12:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18010874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedelicbubblegum/pseuds/psychedelicbubblegum
Summary: Dreams were never supposed to make sense. It was almost a universal rule. However, sometimes, the most confusing dreams for Heather were those intended to reveal absolute truth...





	on the horizon of a star child

It was on the border of endless night where the fire stirred.

 

Slight glimmers - the bright orange slipped into hungry red; the occasional flashes of electric yellow jumping amidst the autumnally dominant landscape - jumped up in newborn anticipation; as bated breath was unlocked, the clasp of lips unbound, allowing the exhale to escape with an unintentional shudder.

 

Through the winding endlessness, the blended spawn of fireworks and stars blink above; colours indecisive and ever changing, sparkling with the lazy delight the affordance of inconsistency could bring.

 

Heather’s socks were odd - one the bright red pair Uncle Brian and Auntie Fran had bought for her thirteenth Christmas (her feet barely grew, mimicking her height; so they were still wearable), dotted with asymmetric spots such an anaemic, worn out pink they were typically mistaken for white; the other one of Sara’s homemade knitted concoctions, forged from her brightest blue and purple wool, horizontal stripes jaunty and inconsistent in their sentimentality - and barely stretched up past her calves.

 

She disliked looking at her feet most of the time; not only in part due to their bizarre smallness, but more so thanks to the acknowledgement of her thighs that came alongside such a process. At 5’1” and eagerly anticipating the dawn of her sixteenth birthday, Heather found her figure had taken an entirely different path to both her older sisters’. Sara was waifish and slim, with the effortless gait of Aunt Phyllis’; Jean was poised and statuesque, unfairly inheriting mom’s unrelentingly ideal proportions, while she - the youngest (and most typically prone to embodying wallflower) - had proven to be rounder and softer than both of them. Her waistline proved to be a saving grace, pinching inwards the same manner all her immediate female relatives’ did; but the heaviness of her shoulders and the stumped shortness of her legs was magnified next to both her older siblings.

 

Never mind the relentless beauty of her best friend (not that she could ever muster up sincere resentment towards Betsy; even with the green tint insecurity came hand-in-hand with).

 

Wasn’t imagination supposed to quell inherent insecurities?

 

Yet there she stood. Garbed in her usual sleepwear - large, navy sweatshirt, lemon tinted stars doughy and sunken from years of well-ware; grey shorts threadbare, with the white string tie chewed to shreds at the end in their old age - with the dark tangles of her hair wound back into a ponytail. The colour had always been remnant of dad’s, deep brown with auburn tinges around the edges, where the brightness of inherent scarlet managed to break through. Her eyes glinted their familiar honey brown, the tinges of amber retained in warm flecks; although she couldn’t ignore the stirring of gold through the usual sea of hazel.

 

_ “You are a fire-child...”  _ Phoenix’s voice was interchangeable; a chameleon in the workings of its chords. A mingling of immortality and passion that refused to retain normality. The twinges of its cry - the thunderous shriek that burst on the universes horizon - clung to the edges of each word; as the hum of a billion possible accents, tones and pitches glided from one to the next, free flowing and liquified. As its next words followed, a flashing bird flitted into view.  It was tiny - barely any bigger than a robin - but spun from sinuous gold, curling edges of premature flame lined along the ridges of its wings; eyes glittering a deeper bronze as it came to stop before Heather. 

 

Instinct propelled her to reach out a hand, fingers curled so it could perch upon the bridge of her index finger; thumb pressed into the side of her peachy flesh (spring sun rarely peaked enough intensity to prompt her complexion to cross into tanning; leaving it to peacefully retain its usual softness, bar the lively pinkened blooms on the apples of her cheeks).

 

“I’m not so sure how my parents would feel about that remark.” It was impossible to ignore the peculiar echo that attached itself to Heather’s voice; carrying throughout the interchangeable blackness of the dream’s scape, but the slight smile still clung to her chapped lips.

 

_ “You worry about opinions too much,”  _ in spite of the veneer of total confidence, the unmistakable tint of insecurity couldn’t be fully blotted out. Even being’s withholding more power than most people could fantasise about suffered from self-doubt; six years alongside the Phoenix had taught Heather this, even with its inconsistent contact. Self-esteem was a mystery no-one truly knew how to crack, age and ability seemed to be beneath its all-consuming elevation of intent.

 

She’d been plagued by an uneasiness, entirely directed at herself, as far back as her mind could reach. It only seemed to have amplified with the manifestation of her mutation; the tentative proddings and intrusions as her telepathy bloomed. It began with the quiet trickle of others’ thoughts creeping into her mind, their internal voices each distinctive and identifiable; her parents, sister, friends, eventually just passers by on the street (impersonal and distant). Only Jean was unreadable. Then again, Jean’s own mutant status had been confirmed long before her own.

 

It had been followed by the gradual shift of her own thoughts being able to transmit freely and stealthily into the minds of others. That had been the official tip off to mom and dad (Heather hadn’t quiet been capable of masking her own mind’s voice back then).

 

“Just mine, or other people’s?” She managed to bite back the accompanying sigh, but skepticism escaped her emotional regulator without any true defense.

 

The only reply her cynicism was granted proved to be a raised brow. It should’ve been surreal - a bird, no bigger than a serving bowl; chastising her with a slight shift of its features - but in the landscape of unconscious impossible it felt positively standard.

 

Along the edges of where the stars shine waned; a muted dullness coating the flashes of their glitter, a hazy whirlpool began to surge. It began as a casual, disinterested blue - the same pale azure as untouched water - but deep within its center (the heart of the storm), flickerings of a potent vermillion bubbled.

 

“Is this why you brought me here?” Heather’s eyes struggled to leave the spiralling cosmic colours as her gaze returned to the saffron creature now cupped in the palm of her hands. They were small, fingers inheriting the same hindered length her legs displayed; but the Phoenix nestled comfortably upon her crinkled skin. Once soft, time had hardened it; an apt, if not cliched, metaphor for how aging itself stripped bare the beguiling ignorance power had once held. “To show me...the future?”

 

A lightheadedness prickled at the edges of her temples whenever precognition ruptured through the bubble of total psionic potential. Abilities seemed to come and go for Heather - a reality which had led to assessment after reassessment at the behest of Dr. McTaggart - in a flitting crescendo of visits; telepathy, empathy, and more recently telekinesis, maintaining as the only powers currently content to stay permanent; but as adjustment settled, the tell-tale signs became decipherable. At least to Heather.

 

“Is it mine?” This time the words’ escaped without hesitation, her eyes widening as she stepped forwards. Beneath the soles of her sock-clad feet, bursts of new colour rose up (pastel and soft; pinks, purples and greens, gentle in the sugary tones they manifested as), winding into the pillowy divots of clouds.

 

Before it replied, the Phoenix broke away from the nest of Heather’s palms; soaring upwards into the coal tinted heavens, the burn of its form leaping across the breadth of the gemstone stars, as its wings extended, their length unfolding into broader, winding lines. With her hands embracing their newfound freedom, the urge to reach out couldn’t be quelled. At the extension of her right arm - skin dusted with chestnut freckles and ashy moles; the brunette hairs flattened back, from the non-existent winds - the cluster of vibrant orange, embedded in the center of the winding spiral, exploded.

 

Heather fought the urge to flinch -  _ or was it cower? _ \- as fire began to erupt. The abandon of any immediate heat came alongside the absent caution; the patches of sparks flinging outward from the crackling leviathan, an emotionless conjuring of unstoppable frenzy and unrelenting chaos, whistled past the scabbed and scratched protrusion of her kneecaps.

 

_ “Not just yours...” _ She barely had time to register the words above the roar of nature.

 

A piercing shriek echoed as the Phoenix dived past her fingertips, crashing into the very core of the flames as the stars themselves began to crackle with shimmering vigor, spurred on by the silhouette rising from the bursting mass of light and embers. As the wings launched outward in opposite directions - the tips pointed, curved in unnatural smooth perfection - a sharp beak morphed from the swirling, clawing pool of energy. The wind finally seemed to renew its life, as the curling tendrils escaping from her hair tie swished back and forth lightly.

 

_ “You need to stop doubting yourself.” _ In spite of the larger form it had taken - undeniably one more conventionally abiding to fear and aggression, the overarching outline of a phoenix (‘The _ Phoenix’ _ , her mind whispered) - its tone retained a soothing quality; both withered and timeless, an impossible naivety that never seemed to slip away. “ _ Our life cycles are intertwined Heather, not just in power but...our friendship.” _

 

The glow of a bonfire - tender, in spite of the uncontrollable mania - crept across the colouring of Heather’s own form; erupting the amber of her eyes to spring outwards, gold intertwining as her teeth sunk into her lower lip.

 

“Then why can’t you just tell me what’s to come?” The childlike desperation living in her tone - pitifully remnant of the nine-year-old girl the Phoenix had first encountered; decked out in a raincoat padded to up to the skyline and velvet skirt coated in a spray of flowers - caused her to cringe slightly; in spite of its honest intention. “You say I have all this potential but...”

 

_ “It’s something you need to find.” _ In spite of the flatness it attempted to apply to its tone - a stark, daresay ironic contrast to the usual free energy tweaking every syllable - the saddened creasing of its brow soothed the butterfly hurricane raging in Heather’s chest.  _ “I share as much as I know is right...But I will be here for that journey. One day...I hope all your doubts will be erased.” _

 

As the fade rose up - their connection reaching - she stepped forwards, breath quickening. Their contact decreased the older she had become; regulating into dreams and the occasional message. Now nestled into her soul, its bed a safe cocoon of acceptance; the Phoenix appeared more eager to hide. Almost as if it were waiting for something...a ‘something’ Heather found dred had clung onto. She missed the easier days; when she’d been a child, the Phoenix uncertain and shy, their friendship an endless array of imaginary games and secret understanding. The impending finality adulthood appeared to push it back with impressive speed.

 

“Wait!” She flung her hands out desperately, reaching outwards towards the navy vortex backing the outline of her oldest friend. “When will I see you again!?”

 

_ “That...I do not know. Until next time, Heather Grey.” _

 

-

 

The thrum of shower water proved to be a refreshingly normal acoustic as conscious returned.

 

Over the growl of the water, the hum of a Spice Girls hit rang out clear as day. Betsy had never been the greatest of singers - not like she’d ever made such a daring claim - but the sound of her typical morning routine proved itself to be an indescribable comfort. It dulled Heather’s cohesion enough to prompt an ill-thought out, sudden movement of rolling over; pushing her face smack into the duvet pyramid she’d unconsciously constructed.

 

Wriggling her body upwards, Heather’s hands struggled to peel back the mound of covers; sleep still dampening her muscles. Worry still clung to her, tighter than a second skin...but maybe it was just paranoia? The premature nervousness of growing into the person she was destined to be?

  
_ Right...destiny... _

 

Whoever said superpowers were straightforward?

**Author's Note:**

> Heather Grey is possibly one of my oldest OCs? She first came to life when I was only about six, and X-Men had began to completely overtake my whole life. I'm massively sentimental where characters are concerned - I positively hoard them tbh - so...she means a lot to me! Hence how this little fanfic - intended to provide some insight into her younger self (not to mention her relationship with a certain entity) - came to be.
> 
> This isn't proofread and I wrote it on a whim so...I hope it's turned out okay xD


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